The Other 90%
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Very amusing from my Texas colleague above.
And good points made. However the poorest 90% is a spectrum of people. Some have food and electricity. Some have clean water. I'm amazed at the people I've loaned money to through Kiva (www.kiva.org) and how they've been working to raise their standard of living.
I think Programmers Without Borders is not necessarily a bad idea, though I don't think we should pay to send David overseas. I guess I could get outvoted on that one, maybe with a one-way ticket
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Another observation I've wondered about for years. Our country forged a nation from one coast to another and beyond.
Other countries (civilizations) have done similar but some, the ones we are probably talking about, have been here far longer.
Why haven't they progressed the same as the "rest" of us?
Maybe, it's because they don't want to. Look what has happened to our own native people when the Europeans arrived and brought new diseases to them. Look at what has happened to the tribes in the rain forest of South America both past and present.
I believe that everybody has the right to good health and a safe life with all the basics covered including education and communication. But I don't believe everybody wants a $100 laptop.
After all, its based on Linux...
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Redmond is in a whole 'nother country from what I can tell, so maybe you'll get your wish... Heh. I still have a one-way ticket left over (since we drove back to Texas from Detroit instead of flying last week), will that help? It's good for a year. Maybe I can donate it somebody? I don't know how the Contintental donation thing works...
Seriously, Steve, you have LOTS more horses than my cityboy self, although I didn't see many carts on the ranch. Are you volunteering any of them for duty to the poor and downtrodden? Hee-hee.
Putting the serious hat back on (at least 10-gallons of it), I have volunteered my services as a developer and database architect to many charities and not-for-profits over the years and only ONE has actually taken me up on the free labor offer. I'd be happy to do charity work, even if it's remote and not on a beach in Juneau.
You almost had me goin', though. I almost felt guilty for buying that Xbox 360 Elite when my old 360 threw a 3ROD a couple weeks ago. I'm going to donate the repaired unit (when it arrives) to some very poor children: mine. They drool over their 527 portfolios and whine about why they're not allowed to spend the money in the education kitty. Yes, Daddy is a mean, mean man. No you can't have an allowance. Go do your Saxon math lessons and be quiet.
If you setup Developers Without Borders (or steal the domain name from the losers who aren't using it), I'll help you out! Most of the charities out there are complete and utter scams, but I trust you to make sure my time and money won't be wasted.
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OK, this is embarassing. The people who own developerswithoutborders.org are squatting on it with one of those stupid revenue generating search widges, but...
Although nobody owns developerswithoutborders.com, but we [MSFT] own DevelopWithoutBorders.com and awarded (along with HP and other partners) some big money prizes this year for doing exactly the kind of work that we're talking about... (I hate those kinds of competitions because I'm not eligible to play.)
Maybe I should read those emails from HR and the PR department, eh? Whoops!
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Here I sit working on my $400 computer with OpenOffice, Firefox, Oracle Express, SQLExpress, NetBeans, and a host of other good software -- all free -- and I kinda wonder what all the hubbub is about. There are plenty of good programs (social, not software) available to help the poor and there is nothing wrong with contributing to them.
What is irritating is when people get all in a huff about the "greedy rich" and thinking that the reason these people are poor is because those people are rich. They start demanding "something must be done!" and there is usually hell to pay -- along with the poor.
These schemes range from the sublime to the ridiculous. I was living in LA about twenty years ago when some group went around raising money to buy shopping carts to give to the homeless. That helped a lot!
Some effects seem counterintuitive. The minimum wage, for example, is a terrible program and it is now so high the most desperately poor have lost all hope of ever getting employment. But the non-poor have such an emotional investment in the program it is never questioned. It is something that is "for the poor" but doesn't require the non-poor to actually do anything.
What the poor need is people to teach them to fish. On the other hand, an advantage to just giving them a fish every day is that you get to go back to them and say, "Remember me? I'm the one providing your daily fish. So I'm sure I can count on your vote!"
Ok, I'm cynical. At my age, I've earned it.
Tomm Carr
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Version Normal Form -- http://groups.google.com/group/vrdbms -
Good for MSFT! Glad they have the domain.
I think we're sidetracked off my original aim. Not so much that we give them a better editor or OS, but maybe there's some design work in software we could do to help them. Offering help to charities is one way, and if some of them took Mr. Reed up on the offer, they'd probably have some nicer systems running.
I think it's more that considering the other 90% when we can. Not that you have to, not that it should be your primary aim, but there are plenty of people out there that aren't necessarily starving, but could use help. It's easy to see in some of the other designs out there for storing food, generating power, transporting goods, etc. I just wonder if there isn't a place that software could help out as well.
No ideas here. I'm not smart enough to come up with them. I'm just trying to point you pointy heads in that direction. Maybe you can convince your boss to give you that 12 week sabbatical to start work on something.
And Bob brings up a good point. Why haven't many other poorer places advanced? Hard to know, but that's a subject for another day.
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How about software loaded onto the $100 laptops that contain strategies for shelters, solar-ovens, fresh water practices etc. Before the laptop comes:
Need to be able to read first
Need to eat before reading
Need to have shelter and clothes before reading
Need some type of economy to support eating and shelter before reading
Need to read to use laptop after all other needs are meet
Laptop and technology not the first solution but part of the resolution.
I never said it was the first part of the solution, just a valid part. See http://laptop.org/vision/
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"What is irritating is when people get all in a huff about the 'greedy rich' and thinking that the reason these people are poor is because those people are rich."
I'm sure the specific chain of causation for wealth and poverty is difficult, if not impossible to determine.
Having said that, though, most rich people did not get rich by catching money dropping out of the sky or by being altruistic. Somewhere along the line, wealthy people made their fortunes by getting enough people to give them more money than they should have (markup, fees, even swindles) as profit, above and beyond the cost of the product. Too often, the amount was simply as much as the person or company could get away with. A lot of companies would pay employees nothing if they could get away with it. And too many employees would do no work for their pay if they could get away with it, too. It is only honest to admit that greed is a significant motivating factor among people.
What is puzzling, though, is the unfettered desire some people have to defend the right of the super-rich to own 5 houses, 10 cars, and 2 planes when a small fraction of those resources could be used to help millions of people around the world. Which leads into...
"What the poor need is people to teach them to fish."
It's odd how people who claim that throwing money at a problem isn't the answer are often the ones who want to defend the right of rich people to acquire as much money as possible.
Even teaching people how to fish, as it were, takes time and money. So I see helping the poor around the world as a giant fishing lesson - including a complimentary reel and tackle box.
Somehow, someone needs to think up an intelligent way to set up these systems, in order to try to help others in the world. It may not work out, but I don't see that as a reason not to try - you'd be surprised at how many people put more effort into following Paris Hilton's "prison sentence" than they do into trying to help poor people learn to help themselves. (It's not only dollars and cents but also justice - if you have seen the blood diamonds** documentary, you know what I mean.)
**Part 1 appears to be missing, but the rest are there.
"Ok, I'm cynical. At my age, I've earned it."
I guess I'm cynical too, just in a different way.
Cheers,
webrunner
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
"I'd be happy to do charity work, even if it's remote and not on a beach in Juneau. [I wish the Geek Cruise people would line up Alaska as a destination. I live in Houston. Going someplace sunny does not sound like fun."
Juneau is about 75 degrees today and sunny.
Come back tommorow.
I could line you up to provide some educational experence in some of our 3rd world ranked villiages.
And you could teach from your home. We still might be the only State with its own communications satalite to provide phone, video and now internet connections and web cams.
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Cool! Sign me up. My stint as backup instructor for the MVP Academy should be up by the end of the month and I'll have some free time (when I'm not campaigning and fund-raising). Some of the most fun that I've had with an audience was as a substitute teacher for a second grade class (got to pay the bills somehow while you're in grad school)...
I've got a counterpart (one of those shifty BizTalk Ranger types, though) who is on a mission to deliver technology evangelism to the K-12 market. I'm sure that Erik would love to be beamed into Alaska, too.
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The other 90% of the world already benefit from the software.
How so? Ever hear of exports? Consider any product manufactured, distributed, managed with software. Pharmaceuticals are exported. The software wasn't exported, but the recipients benefitted from it. In the same way, some portion of the oil consumed making the pharmaceuticals, was effectively consumed by every recipient, in every part of the world.
Americans effectively subsidize other parts of the world by paying big $$ for some pharmaceuticals sold cheaply overseas. Maybe Americans should demand that other parts of the world pay their fair share.
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I think the article complete skips over how the other 90% benefit after the 10% paid for the research and development of the software.
Take the Internet for example...it wasn't targeted for the masses, but once someone developed software that made it more accessible for the elite academic groups, it trickled down to us po folk.
there's lots of other examples, but the article glossed over the fact that others benefit later .
Lowell
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